12.04.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:38 pm by Administrator
I had a wonderful, FUN, day in Amsterdam today! My last trip of the year and I’ll be moving into my new apartment in San Clemente, California – yes California. I plan to spend more time on the ground there in 2010!
But today I had a day to explore. I started out to walk around Amsterdam. As I left the hotel I saw a lot the bikes, as I had seen all over the city the past few days. I decided to ask if I could hire a bike. I could! In fact, the concierge, just gave it to me for the day…. Off I went.
I wanted to get something to eat. I road past several cafes and then into a park. I saw a café with a nice garden – I parked the bike and went in – low and behold it was a center for spiritual growth. Everything was in Dutch, but I certainly felt at home. I had coffee and cake and then went on my way again.
I rode over toward the museums, and intended to go to the Van Gogh museum. Then I saw the Rijks museum with works from Rembrandt, Vermeer – the Dutch masters. I decided to go there, and Van Gogh in the afternoon.
After the museum, I rode through town along the canals with the little Dutch houses lining the streets. Next to the central train station is the wonderful, 7 story library, overlooking the city and harbor. There is a café on the top floor. I enjoyed a lovely lunch. They have large banks of computers on every floor, and seating where you can essentially hide yourself from other watchful readers. I did just that and took a little 15 minute snooze after my lunch.
On my way back I rode my little push bike through the red light district. It’s actually quite fascinating. Not that I like it, but it seems so much more civilized than I imagined. I suppose legalization and taxation make sense.
I got a little lost, but just kept asking people and finding my way. Eventually I found the museums again so I went into Van Gogh. I was pleased it’s not too large and spent just an hour looking only at those paintings that called to me…. The colorful ones.
It took me another 30 minutes to find my way back to the hotel and it is now dark. It was quite a day! I’m going to relax for awhile, and then have dinner with a woman I met on the plane to Beijing last September. She is Australian, lives here in Amsterdam, working for Accenture. We met the other night for dinner and had a lovely time. We’ll do something fun tonight!
It was quite a day!
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11.07.09
Posted in Life in General, Uncategorized at 4:11 pm by Administrator
My life seems to be a series of touch and goes. My stepfather, who was an Airforce Pilot says that’s a landing that doesn’t complete and a takeoff that never started….
China – California – Pennsylvania – Florida – Pennsylvania – California – Pennsylvania – Amsterdam – California…..
Today I’m on my way back to California from Philadelphia. I came here to visit my brother and his family. Dave had brain surgery 3 weeks ago. He is doing amazingly well and will be going back to work in a week. My parents were here when he had the surgery – I was still in China – and I came in as relief caretaker for them a week ago. The good news is that I didn’t have much caretaking to do! Dave was already taking the dog for a walk and circling the mile track close to their house.
And since I’m on the right coast I went down to Florida to speak with Patty at DEMA – a scuba diving convention. We spoke about creating a repeat customer and identifying buying styles. And we marketed our services as the Dynamic Duo… that was one of the great outcomes of our time in China – we had a fabulous time presenting together and discovered that we work very well together.
I’m coming back to Philly for Thanksgiving, then heading out to Amsterdam to teach a Microsoft workshop in December. It’s a crazy schedule, but I’m happy, healthy, strong, and flexible. And I have wonderful friends and family who are patient with my schedule – Like you!!
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10.06.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:27 pm by Administrator
Well, we have a few days off and decided to explore more of China. What a difference! Shanghai is an amazing bustling city. When I was here 13 years ago, it was nothing like this today. It’s actually quite clean and organized. And very crowded. Patty and I had lunch today overlooking the Bund, the oldest part of the city near the waterfront. There are skyscrapers and high rises as far as the eye can see. You can find small neighborhoods like the French Concession and some older shopping and eating areas that are quite quaint with beautiful old architecture.
This has been a welcome change for us. SIAS University is the amazing dream of a Chinese American man, Shawn Chen, who has built it from nothing to todays student population of over 20,000 in just 10 years. It is however in a much more rural and remote part of China that is quite different. The university itself is a bit like disneyland. Shawn knows that most of these students may never leave China so his goal has been to bring the world to them. We meet in Washington Hall (which looks like the US Capital building on one side and the Forbidden City on the other), eat on European Street and have coffee in Italian Square. It’s rather cosmopolitan…..
More to explore her in Shanghai tomorrow and then back to SIAS for our final 10 days!
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Posted in Uncategorized at 2:14 pm by Administrator
That’s the swine flu…. I had a little scare a few days ago. I started coughing, then had a fever and headache. There is a flyer in the hall of our dormitory that describes the symptoms of the H1N1 vs. the common cold. It seemed I might have been kissing a pig… After 2 days in bed Patty dragged me down to the SIAS University clinic/hospital. After a series of hand signals and broken translation by a student angel that stopped in they put me on an IV and pumped me full of pills and potions. I didn’t know until yesterday that we were actually there in the hospital for 6 hours. It was a miracle cure. I woke up the next morning feeling normal. I still have a hacking cough – it seems that everyone in China has that from the air pollution. I don’t know if we’ll ever know exactly what it was, but I’m better now and ever so grateful to have had my guardian angel Patty and Ronny (the student) watching over me!
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Posted in Uncategorized at 2:12 pm by Administrator
Ni hao! Hello from China!
Did you think I had fallen off the great wall? Just about. We have been going non-stop since arriving. I can’t believe it’s been 10 days already. It seems like a month actually.
Accomplishments so far are that we have interviewed 130+ applicants and selected 97 members for the first World Academy for the Future of Women. We conducted an information session in the Opera House for about 750 students including men, and are ready to start tonight with the first welcome session and banquet. We’ve been meeting daily to organize the application process and launch of the academy.
Other activities have included a symphony, welcome banquet, the military drill with 6000 freshman students, the candlelight opening ceremony to welcome the new freshman including spectacular performances by the fine arts departments, the Zhengzhou Friendship awards ceremony and banquet, Brenda Institute Opening ceremony, and many other meetings where we have been paraded around as the foreign dignitaries. Phew…. That and trying to fit in a little exercise and rest have left almost no time for anything else.
The highlight of the trip is the students. They are incredibly gracious and sweet. All are anxious to learn and practice their English as well as get to know us. Patty and I are roommates in the foreign faculty dormitory. We have three rooms – a bedroom, small bathroom and sitting room. We have a red phone so we’ve affectionately coined this “the bat cave”. Patty is Batman and I’m Robin. We make a good team. We’re enjoying working together immensely. That’s also a highlight.
Challenges are that nothing was really well planned out and we are dealing with a fair amount of chaos. That’s an interesting learning experience for me. I am realizing that I have extremely high standards and want things to be well planned out – this chaos has been quite difficult for me. However, the results have been good so I am having to look at my need for organization and planning and am learning to go with the flow.
There will be a lot of life lessons from this trip. I haven’t had a chance to process it all, but we have a few days off next week and are planning a trip to Shanghai so hopefully I’ll have time then.
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07.04.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:18 am by Administrator
There are now 45 women in Group 2. Some have multiple gardens. We are producing lots of food. Cucumbers have been to most successful crop. Some have had radishes and cilantro. We’ve added swiss chard and white and black beans and both are growing well.
We’ve not had good luck with tomatoes, but that has helped us learn a few lessons. We planted several gardens yesterday, one which had beautiful tomato plants. It turns out that Dona Gorgonia brought in the soil of her corn field. You can see how much richer the soil looks compared to the other gardens. Her plants are flourishing. Now we know that we need to improve the soil.
The good news is, we can do that. On my first day back in Guatemala, I met a woman at the guest house in Guatemala City where I was staying. Louisa is a volunteer from Canada working in another part of Guatemala. She is travelling here with her ex-husband for 3 weeks. Her diverse background includes teaching people how to compost. So a few days later when she came through El Remate and called me looking for a place to stay, I got them settled up at Sak Luk and then set her up to do a class for the women the next day.
About 20 showed up and learned about mixing carbon and nitrogen ingredients to create a chemical reaction. They mix newspaper, cardboard, ashes, sawdust, vegetables, fruit, egg shells, and of course, the necessary pupo de vaca, pupo de caballo, and pupo de gallienas…. That’s cow, horse, and chicken manure. Mixed together several times a week with water, in a few weeks they’ll have compost to add to the soil that will create greatly improve their crops.
That was the first step – knowledge. The next step is to create a sense of urgency. After seeing the much better results in Dona Gorgonia’s garden, the next day a compost pile with Floridalma, Angelica’s mother. It was great to have another opportunity to review the basics. They all seem to understand and I am pleased that they are anxious to jump in and do what they can to improve the gardens.
Then today we ate lunch at Dona Lina’s house. She lives on a corner across from where I meet with the women for the reunions. I can tell she cleaned the house, and then made us a wonderful lunch of cucumber and tomato salad, a spinach-like vegetable called Yerba Mora, and chicken and vegetable soup. There was also the standard tortillas and rice for Alanna. Lemonade to drink and good company. Lina has 5 sons and a daughter. The oldest son, Gustavo is still at home while working in the town nearby. He wants to be a lawyer. Jenny, the oldest daughter lives in Guatemala city and has a baby of her own. The other four boys – Daniel, Hector, Arnold are always participating in the group activities and are often the ones setting off firecrackers…
Caesar is Lina’s husband. He helped her build her garden and was there when we planted. He asked a lot of great questions that day. Today I found out why. Caesar had worked in a nearby reforestation project run by the Taiwanese government. There they are growing small plants that are then transplanted into the forest. Caesar knows all about gardening. He is going to do a class for us on Saturday to help the women learn how to grow the small plants from seed and then transplant them into their gardens.
I am so pleased to have this expertise come to us. I am at a bit of a loss not knowing more about gardening, especially here in Peten, the jungle. Conditions are good for growing – it is hot and humid, but we need to use the right techniques. I have also just found out that we also need to pay attention to the phases of the moon. During certain days it is bad to plant seeds. The plants may grow, but they won’t yield a crop. The people here know about this from their corn fields. Most all of them have some land that has been in the family for generations where they grow corn. They pay attention to the cycles of the moon and only plant during the second and third quarters of the moons cycle. If they plant in the 4th quarter there is no yield. They can’t explain it other than to describe the results. I don’t understand it, but it certainly is interesting!
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06.22.09
Posted in Central American Adventure, Gardens, Guatemala, Mayan Calendar, Triathlon, Uncategorized at 11:24 pm by Administrator
I did it!
That is the main thing. I am very happy to just do that… the rest is icing on the cake. And there was plenty (bastante) of that….
When I registered on Saturday afternoon a small crowd had gathered. It is a well run event despite being small. They normally have about 250 entrants, but this year due to the swine flu and economic crisis attendance was about 100. My number was 52 – a magical number in the Mayan Calendar. 52 is 4 x 13. Most things in the calendar are counted in cycles of 13, and 4 is the number of the cardinal directions (North, South, East, West). It was a good sign of things to come.
It was a beautiful day in El Remate. I didn´t sleep much – too much excitement – so I woke up early and went down to the playa about 6am. People were just beginning to arrive. Being blonde, and tall, I stand out, so everyone talked to me to wish me buen suerte (good luck).
At 7am sharp we started the swim. Not wanting to be in the crowd, I hung back a little and took off after the majority had left the beach. The 1km swim seemed a bit longer than I expected since I´d had little opportunity to train. I rounded the first buoy, then the second, completing the triangle in about 25 minutes….
Then onto the bike. Riding through El Remate the women and their families were lining the streets to cheer me on. What a boost to my energy. I did this as much for them as myself. The first 4 miles is a series of BIG hills. I had trained on them twice so I knew what I was facing. I climbed the hills (poco a poco – little by little) finally reaching El Caoba at the top of the hills. The road continues on through small pueblos, farms, and sections of jungle. It is a beautiful ride. Some friends from El Remate drove along with me for the whole ride. It was wonderful to hear them cheering me on. 20 miles later I arrived in Tikal, the great Mayan pyramid center.
Only a 4 mile run to go. I took off into the jungle. It´s a beautiful park in the middle of the rainforest. We ran from Temple G Complex to Temple P on the other side of the park…. Then past Temple 4, the highest in the park at 74meters, and then past El Mundo Perdido, the Lost World, my favorite group of temples. Finally I rounded the corner and could see Temple 2 looming ahead and a big sign indicating I had reached the finish line. It read META….
Meta means goal. My goal had been to finish in under 3hours. I finished in 2 hours 50 minutes. They placed a medal around my neck and called my name. My friends – Alanna, Estella, Erwin, Esmeralda, and Di were there to welcome me to the central plaza. It was very exciting. I achieved my goal to finish. We hung out at the central plaza for awhile just enjoying the positive energy and satisfaction of achieving a goal. Taking time to celebrate the moment.
The group went on to tour the pyramids and I went back with Estella and Esmerelda to collect my bike and shower. Come to find out, there was a celebration luncheon for the participants back at the Tikal entrance… We walked in late, but the timing was absolutely perfect. Just as we walked in they were announcing the winner of the category Women age 40 – 49…. and guess what? I came in 2nd Place behind a professional triathlete! What a surprise! I received a trophy, and a hug from the Los Pinos Cow… (a milk company sponsored the event). Pictures to follow…
It was an incredible day to add to my list of amazing adventures here in Guatemala. I am so happy to have finished and to have shared it with good friends. I can´t wait to show the trophy to the women. I hope to be an example of what can happen when you set a goal and work to achieve it….
One last thing…. when I introduced myself to Eduardo Cofino, the organizer, we had an amazing discussion. We had met in El Remate on my last trip. He remembered me and ask what I am doing back in El Remate. I told him I am here working with the women to plant gardens. He said he can help…. He is in charge of the Guatemalan development bank and allocates funds to non-profits. He said he can help us get legalization, and money…. a lot of money. I almost started to cry…. Wow – was that ever icing!
My incredible journey continues. I just wonder what will be the surprise today!
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06.19.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:24 am by Administrator
I´m back in El Remate. The women of Group 2 just threw a big party to welcome me back. The group is now 45 strong. 45 gardens or more. Many have added a second garden. The cucumbers are prolific. The tomatos un poco despacio (a little slow), and most of the radishes are already eaten.
I´ve been swimming and biking, so I´m as ready as I can be for the triathlon. It´s on Sunday, the summer solstice. I´ll be biking through the neighborhoods and to hear the women applaud will charge me up the hills. And hills there are. I did a practice ride the other day and it´s challenging, but I can do it. It doesn´t matter how long it takes, this is about participating… not just in a triathlon, but also in life.
I was talking to some of the women the other day… life is like a garden. We plant seeds, and some of them grow and others don´t. And we don´t get to eat right away… the garden requires care. With patience, a little sun and water, tiny seeds turn into vegetables… food…. life.
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04.12.09
Posted in Central American Adventure, Gardens, Guatemala, Making a Difference, Mayan Calendar, Uncategorized at 9:44 pm by Administrator
A quick update. It´s been a busy week. We have built 24 new gardens and planted another 15 existing gardens as well. Will be planting a few more in the next couple days. 30 gardens in 30 days. Not bad! Check out Lina and Clara´s gardens…
Heidy and her neice Milly taught me to make tortillas in her dirt floor, fire burning stove kitchen. We had the traditional eggs, black beans and tortillas for dinner. It will be nice for them to have vegetables to mix in….
I will be leaving here Wednesday to travel for a couple of weeks in other parts of Guatemala before I come home on April 30th. I will be sad to leave all the friends I have made here in El Remate. Especially the garden women.
This week is a big holiday in Latin America – Semana Santa (Easter). Lots of people are here for the weekend enjoying the lake. A good place to be because it is HOT! Over 100 with lots of humidity. I´m off to swim right now.
Mucho amor,
Alicia
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03.27.09
Posted in Central American Adventure, Gardens, Guatemala, Making a Difference, Uncategorized at 12:18 am by Administrator
For the past 5 years, the women of Ix-Canaan have had square foot gardens in their homes. Rose, a volunteer from Washington D.C has been working with the women to teach them how to grow vegtables and herbs using organic techniques. Unfortunately Rose has been ill the past year and the women haven´t had gardens for awhile. But now, the gardens are back.
Alita (another volunteer who is helping me with translation) and I met with the entire women´s group yesterday and distributed seeds (Radishes, cilantro, chile, pepino, and tomato). We offered to help in getting the gardens ready for planting. The group is slow to warm up, but we finally had a few volunteers. So, this morning I built a garden with Sonia, and this afternoon with Dona Juana. Blanca came by to supervise this morning, and she seemed much more positive – perhaps they didn´t believe that I would actually get down on my hands and knees to work, but work I did. Sonia and I cleared two plots for her and her daughter Deyme, and Juana and I created a whole new garden. Her prior garden is now a computer center. I will be building gardens with Gloria, Blanca, Gregoria, and Betty, and I expect that when word gets around we´ll be asked to help with others.
Today is my birthday. Anne (Director of Project Ix-Canaan) took us to El Gringo Perdido for lunch. Between that and building gardens, I couldn´t have had a better birthday. This is my wildest dream, to contribute toward the end of hunger, and it is happening. I am grateful to the women themselves, as well as Alita, Rose, and Anne for the opportunity to work with them toward the end of hunger in El Remate!
Who knows where I´ll be building gardens next!
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